Is there a market for refurbished toothbrushes? An exploratory study on consumers' acceptance of refurbishment for different product categories

Refurbishment is the process of collecting used products, assessing their condition, and replacing and/or upgrading parts in order to resell them to other consumers. Although refurbishment is increasingly seen as both economically and environmentally advantageous, it remains questionable whether consumers will accept refurbishment as a viable alternative for all sorts of product categories. In-depth interviews among 18 participants were conducted in which participants were asked to sort 30 product categories on their likelihood to accept or reject a refurbished product from this category and to elaborate on their underlying motives for this. The results revealed the following reasons for either accepting or rejecting a refurbished product for a certain category: financial, functional quality, aesthetic quality, warranty, contamination, and personalisation. Based on the type of product category (e.g., hedonic vs. functional, high vs. low involvement), these reasons are either more or less important to consumers. When designing for refurbishment, designers need to tackle the relevant reasons for the specific category in their design process to stimulate consumers to accept refurbished products.